 |
Parties Change: So What?
| |
| | Unformatted Document Text:
3
will posit a number of potentially testable propositions.
Concepts/Terminology
Party Change
The usage of the term party change is the same as in Harmel and Janda (1994: 275):Party change (in the broadest sense) is any variation, alteration or modification in
how
parties are organized, what human and material resources they can draw upon, what they stand for and what they do. But this usage is so broad that it raises unrealistic expectations about the scope of a theory of party change. Our theory only [pertains to] those aspects of party change that are within a party’s direct control – that it decides to change... Examples are changes in party rules, structures, policies, strategies and tactics.
Our focus in this paper, however, is more limited. We are concerned only with change in parties’ organization and ideology/issue profiles.
Though some of the party change literature combines both types of change into one,
i.e. party change writ large (e.g., Harmel et al, 1995), it is also the case that separate literatures have developed to explain organizational (e.g. Panebianco, 1988) and issue change (e.g. Downs, 1957), and for good reason. Issue change primarily relates to collective benefits and is often motivated by desire to garner more public support, while much organizational change is invisible to the public, with effects that are more immediately and directly relevant to those who share in its internal power and other resources. We too will at times distinguish between consequences of issue and of organizational change, but when the distinction does not seem theoretically important, we will merge the two and refer simply to “party change.”
We will also, at times, distinguish among different amounts (or degrees) of change.
It should not be expected that all degrees of change will have the same impact, and we will not make such an assumption here. Neither will we assume that larger amounts of change will in all circumstances produce larger effects; there are times when a single, small, well-conceived change could have more impact (at least, of the intended variety) than a mass of changes which are less thoroughly considered and/or controlled. Indeed, as will become evident later, there are situations where the more dramatic the amount of change, the more likely that it will backfire and prove counter-productive. We will, then, find it useful to distinguish between change which amounts to “tweaking” and that which amounts to a drastic makeover.
|
| |
| |
|
|
3
will posit a number of potentially testable propositions.
Concepts/Terminology
Party Change
The usage of the term party change is the same as in Harmel and Janda (1994: 275):
Party change (in the broadest sense) is any variation, alteration or modification in
how
parties are organized, what human and material resources they can draw upon,
what they stand for and what they do. But this usage is so broad that it raises
unrealistic expectations about the scope of a theory of party change. Our theory
only [pertains to] those aspects of party change that are within a party’s direct
control – that it decides to change... Examples are changes in party rules, structures,
policies, strategies and tactics.
Our focus in this paper, however, is more limited. We are concerned only with change in
parties’ organization and ideology/issue profiles.
Though some of the party change literature combines both types of change into one,
i.e. party change writ large (e.g., Harmel et al, 1995), it is also the case that separate
literatures have developed to explain organizational (e.g. Panebianco, 1988) and issue
change (e.g. Downs, 1957), and for good reason. Issue change primarily relates to
collective benefits and is often motivated by desire to garner more public support, while
much organizational change is invisible to the public, with effects that are more
immediately and directly relevant to those who share in its internal power and other
resources. We too will at times distinguish between consequences of issue and of
organizational change, but when the distinction does not seem theoretically important, we
will merge the two and refer simply to “party change.”
We will also, at times, distinguish among different amounts (or degrees) of change.
It should not be expected that all degrees of change will have the same impact, and we will
not make such an assumption here. Neither will we assume that larger amounts of change
will in all circumstances produce larger effects; there are times when a single, small, well-
conceived change could have more impact (at least, of the intended variety) than a mass of
changes which are less thoroughly considered and/or controlled. Indeed, as will become
evident later, there are situations where the more dramatic the amount of change, the more
likely that it will backfire and prove counter-productive. We will, then, find it useful to
distinguish between change which amounts to “tweaking” and that which amounts to a
drastic makeover.
|
|
 Convention | | All Academic Convention is the premier solution for your association's abstract management solutions needs. | | Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. | | Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! | | Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! | | Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. | | Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! | | Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! | | Click here for more information. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
